Almanac.

On April 13, 1742, Handel's "Messiah" was performed for...

On April 13, 1742, Handel's "Messiah" was performed for the first time in the Dublin Musick Hall.

In 1923 the Illinois legislature voted to give women the right to serve on juries.

In 1958 Van Cliburn became the first American to win the Tchaikovsky International Piano Contest in Moscow.

In 1972 major league baseball players went on strike in a dispute over pensions.

In 1983 Harold Washington was declared the winner over Bernard Epton in Chicago's mayoral election, making him the city's first black chief executive.

In 1992 a turn-of-the-century tunnel network under the Loop was flooded through a breach in the floor of the Chicago River, causing a massive shutdown of businesses and the Chicago Board of Trade and evacuation of high-rises. (Water was not entirely pumped from dozens of flooded basements until early May.)